What is happening to the International Criminal Court?

2024-01-11 09:00:00

Today, interstate relations are going through a serious crisis. An imbalance is evident in the global governance system, including the infrastructure of the international institutions created within its framework. It is obvious that many of them will not survive the current turbulence on the world stage. Some, due to their inertia and lack of will to adapt to new realities. Others, due to the fact that, having been conceived as tools to maintain global order, they have become instruments to settle geopolitical scores.

Like Argentina, Russia was at the forefront of the creation of the International Criminal Court. Its emergence was the result of humanity’s idealistic desire to form a permanent body of international justice, whose competence would include the prosecution of those guilty of the most serious criminal crimes, including genocide. By signing the founding document of the ICC, the Rome Statute, Many governments assumed that over time it would obtain universal recognition.

However, Russia (like some other countries) later withdrew its signature. The practical results of the ICC’s activities show that it was a wise step. Throughout more than 20 years of its existence, with a multi-million dollar budget and an impressive staff of almost 900 employeesthe Court has issued few decisions, some of which cannot be considered impartial.

In recent years, there were practically no new accessions to the court; since 2015 only four States. At the same time, the number of those who withdrew their signature from the Statute increased. Among its members are not the largest countries in terms of population – India and China, nor are Russia, the United States, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other influential countries.

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Now, for many it is obvious that the The West usually uses this structure to solve its problems selfish and opportunistic. By focusing first on conflict research in Africa, the CPI attracted fair criticism for such geographical imbalance that was a consequence of Western colonial inertia.

In certain cases, the presentation of charges by the Court against leaders of various countries or warring parties proved to be a major obstacle to the political resolution of conflicts and interstate and national reconciliation. Particularly rejected were the ICC’s attempts to prosecute current heads of state in violation of international standards on immunities. In the case of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashirthis practice sparked a major confrontation between the Court and the African Union.

The ICC is not only ineffective, but partial. A clear example of this is the futile attempts to organize criminal proceedings against US military personnel in Afghanistan, despite the fact that more than 60 episodes of torture and mistreatment of detainees are known with certainty. Washington put unprecedented pressure on the prosecutor, imposing personal sanctions against her, several ICC secretariat employees, and her family. All natural and legal persons suspected by the United States of collaborating with the Court in the performance of its functions were under threat of secondary sanctions. As a result, the case was “on hold.”

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Another thing that raises questions is the system of ICC financing, which allows its budget to be replenished through voluntary contributions from governments, international organizations, as well as legal entities and individuals. It is clear that in this way the “sponsors” of the Court rule, pressuring it to make partial decisions.

The apotheosis of the degradation of the ICC was the recent issuance of “arrest orders” of Russian leaders. For our country, which is not part of the Rome Statute, these “orders” have no legal effects. We proceed from the fact that all states, without exception, have the obligation to respect the immunity of Russian officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction.

In this way, the good idea that had guided the founding fathers of the Court was put into practice in a completely different way. The ICC turned out to be an expensive bureaucratic toy used by Western “investors” for their own interest.

Today, Argentina is going through great changes related to the willingness of new authorities to review many of the costly and ineffective decisions made in the past. Perhaps it is worth analyzing whether it is useful to be a member of the ICC, as Russia did at the time.